


Butterfly Wings

by Ciara_in_cotton_socks



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: And Lardo, Angst, Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, Derek "Nursey" Nurse needs a hug, Dex needs a hug too, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, It Gets Better, Larissa "Lardo" Duan is a Good Bro, M/M, Please Be careful, Please Don't Hate Me, Please stay safe, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Sharing a Room, hugs for everyone, it does end on a hopeful note, oblivious hockey boys, or at least she tries to be, post- Dib Flip, take care of yourself, wow that's an understatement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 13:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10617639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciara_in_cotton_socks/pseuds/Ciara_in_cotton_socks
Summary: The idea of sharing a room with Derek Nurse? Intolerable.The reality of sharing a room with Derek Nurse? Not unpleasant.And then Will sees something he wasn't supposed to, and things spiral from there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING.
> 
> Caution urged. This piece features references to Nursey self-harming. There are no graphic descriptions of the results, and his actions are not featured at all, but if this story could be even slightly triggering to you I urge you not to read.
> 
> Please take care of yourself and stay safe.

“Dex,” Lardo says through gritted teeth from atop her bunk.  “I’m going to sleep.”

 

He doesn’t move.

 

“Dex,” she says again, less patient this time.  “I’m going to sleep _now._ ”

 

Is it possible that the coin is glinting at him on purpose?  It feels like it.

 

“Poindexter,” says Lardo, her voice raised a bit now.  “ _Move_.”

 

He glances up at that, startled back into reality to find the diminutive team manager scowling down at him with the sort of expression she normally saves for one of his and Nursey’s more spectacular miscommunications.  Perhaps because those have become increasingly infrequent, she is more terrifying than Will had remembered.  He cards a hand through his hair and hastily scrambles to his feet.

 

“Sorry Lardo,” he says, and turns to go.  He’s got his hand on the doorknob before she speaks again, most of the venom in her voice having evaporated.

 

“Dex,” Lardo says, almost pleadingly.  “Don’t be mad.  You two will work it out.”

 

He snorts at that, bemused by the absurdity of it all. 

 

“If by ‘work it out’ you mean ‘burn the Haus to the ground’, then sure, we’ll work it out,” Will snipes.  The voice in his head which sounds like his mother scolds him, but _come on_.  He’s been dealt an unfair hand tonight and they both know it, losing out on the solo dibs he’s been working for over a two-year period because Nursey is a weirdo who gets a kick out of reading Lardo’s assignments.  He wishes he could afford to turn down the horrific proposal of sharing a living space with Derek Malik Nurse, he really does, but Maeve is starting at Dartmouth in the fall and cutting the already reasonable rent he’d be paying in the Haus in half is an offer he simply can’t refuse. 

 

Doesn’t mean he has to like it though.

 

He says as much to Lardo, the words tumbling from his lips with more fervour than they had earlier, and to her credit she doesn’t interrupt him once.  She just sits on top of her duvet, cross-legged, and watches him intently as he rants on about the injustice of it all and how hard he’s worked and how he’s just gotten over his strong desire to strangle Nursey on sight and how having to see his smug face first thing in the morning and last thing at night is certain to cause a relapse, Chowder or no Chowder.

 

When he finishes he does so abruptly and finds his breathing laboured.  He knows he’s probably an unflattering shade of red but he doesn’t _care._ All he cares about is the nightmare future stretching out in front of him, tripping over obnoxious books of poetry and sweaters more expensive than his entire wardrobe and a bedroom flooded with the too-sweet smell of whatever over-the-top coffee monstrosity is flavour of the month with his _goddamn roommate, Derek Malik Nurse._

Perhaps Lardo sees the desperation in his eyes, because she heaves a heavy sigh and swings down from her bed with the grace of the gymnast she might have been and settles on the futon underneath, beckoning him over and shoving a sheaf of sketches of skeletal butterflies onto the floor.  He is reluctant, unwilling to fold after she wouldn’t earlier, but he’s also not stupid so he stuffs his hands into his pockets and stomps over to perch sulkily beside her.

 

“If this is the part where you tell me you’re sorry again, don’t,” says Will, knowing that he’s being unkind and not particularly caring.  “You’ve made up your mind, all of you have, and I’m not stupid enough to think I can change it.”

 

“Dex, I-“

 

“It’s not like I expected to just be handed dibs!” he exclaims.  “I guess I just thought- shit, I thought hard work counted for something around here, that’s all.”

 

She sighs heavily next to him.  “It does, Dex.  Both yours and Nursey’s.”

 

“He doesn’t even need dibs!” he finds himself arguing, before he can stop himself, and a wave of nauseating shame rolls over him.  “The Nurse’s could afford to rent him a freaking penthouse apartment for the year if he wanted!”

 

The look Lardo gives him makes him feel guilty.  She stretches her bare feet out in front of her, nudging at the wing of one of her unfinished butterflies, and a terrible stillness falls over her shoulders.  Belatedly, the image of her wrapped around Shitty after yet another falling out with his father flickers in Will’s mind.  He reaches out a clumsy hand to touch Lardo’s arm.  She shows no sign of noticing.

 

“Just because he doesn’t need dibs doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve them,” she says after a long, stifled silence.  “And, as it goes, maybe we have a different idea of _need._ ”

 

“Lardo, what-“

 

She raises a finger and points towards the door, effectively cutting off the question without so much as a glance in his direction.

 

“I’m done arguing with you, Poindexter.  You and Nursey are sharing my dibs, and you either like it or you get over it or you find somewhere else to live where the rent is as cheap and the food is as good.  Now get out of my room, for the love of Bitty’s pies, I’m _tired.”_

Will stands up, still vibrating with fury, and strides to the door.  He pauses for a moment, turns one last time to see Lardo still sitting where he left her, having bent to pick up her pile of drawings.  Her head is bowed, fists clenched around the thick paper, and she looks so much _more_ than tired that he doesn’t bother arguing with her any longer.  He shuts the door with her still sitting there.

 

The walk across campus to his dorm room is swift and angry, but he’s not sure if it’s anger at Nursey or Lardo or himself, and by the time he scrambles into bed he’s determined to at least try to get on with things.  For the sake of the team, or so he tells himself.

 

In the morning, he’s still pissed off but he tries not to be.

 

He focuses so much on not thinking about what Lardo said that eventually he doesn’t.

 

\---------------------------------

 

He spends his last few months of sophomore year getting used to the idea of rooming with Nursey.

 

It’s not like they haven’t shared a room before, after all.  They’re almost always roommates on roadies, and they generally make it through those without any serious incidents.  They’ve fallen asleep in the same room too, Chowder’s usually, after an ill-advised Netflix binge they all knew going in that they were too tired for.  Sure, Nursey’s drooled on his shoulder a couple of times but he always says sorry the next morning and offers to wash his flannel for him, bringing it back a day or two later smelling like his expensive fabric softener.

 

They can manage, for the sake of the team, for the sake of their partnership and for the sake of his sanity.  He can always buy a pair of earplugs for when Nursey decides to read his poetry aloud, and they’ll be so busy they won’t spend much time in the room anyway.  Nursey will be a perfectly adequate roommate, he decides.  He has to be.

 

He tells Nursey this on the last day before they break for summer vacation.  They’re sitting out on the roof, enjoying the sunshine and eating popsicles while they watch Ransom and Holster sandwich Lardo in a cuddle in the front yard.  The three of them are crying, although Lardo will later deny it and threaten them all with grievous bodily harm when they bring it up.  Will is going to miss these weirdos.

 

“You’re not the worst roommate I could have gotten,” he says, oddly emotional and blaming it on the seniors below.  “Next year will be good.”

 

“Not the worst, eh?” Nursey repeats next to him, bumping their shoulders together companionably.  He hums contentedly.  “I’ll take it.  Your nose is burning.”

 

“All of me is burning,” says Will.  “Perils of Irish heritage, I guess.  Jesus, how are you not _dying_?”

 

Nursey shrugs and plays with the loose thread on the end of one of the full-length sleeves of his white v-neck.

 

“You make sacrifices for aesthetic,” he says sagely.  “Beauty is pain, young grasshopper.”

 

Will groans.

 

“I take it back, you’re going to be _impossible_ ,” he exclaims, but Nursey just grins and leans over to drop his popsicle down the back of Will’s t-shirt.

Will shrieks in a very manly manner _,_ but when he scrambles to give chase he’s beaming broadly.

 

\---------------------------------

 

Nursey, it transpires, is actually not a terrible roommate by any means.  Sure, he leaves poetry anthologies littered all over the floor for Will to stub his toe on, but apart from that he mostly keeps to himself.  He doesn’t argue with Will about who gets the top bunk- they both know that with his general clumsiness and penchant for overindulgence in alcohol it simply isn’t a viable option for Nursey if he wants to make it through the year relatively unscathed- and when he gets up early to go for a run he always brings back two coffees from Annie’s so that Will wakes up to that insatiable aroma.

 

Other than that, Will doesn’t see much of Nursey at all.  He spends a lot of time in the library, according to Chowder, and he tells Will he’s peer-tutoring some girl he knows from Andover too, so the time he spends in their shared room is pretty negligible.  Will relishes the peace and quiet, even though he does feel a little guilty that he thought of Nursey as the quintessential slacker for so long.  If the schedule he keeps in their first few weeks is anything to go by, being an English major is far more stressful than he realised.

 

\---------------------------------

 

The first kegster of his junior year ends in much the same manner as Will expected it would; the Haus is in shambles, Chowder has passed out on the green couch with his head in Farmer’s lap, Ford is trying to wrangle Bitty’s phone from his grasp and Nursey is draped all over Will, much to his chagrin.

 

“Deeeex,” his fellow defenseman whines in his ear, his breath hot and foul from Ollie and Wicksy’s particularly putrid batch of tub juice.  His fingers scrabble for purchase in the front of Will’s t-shirt and Will has to stop himself from cringing.  “Dex, Dex, _Dex,_ c’mon, let’s daaaaance.”

 

Will snorts.  “Hate to break it to you, dude, but the party’s over.”

 

“Huh?” Nursey blinks blearily up at him, then around the room.  His eyebrows shoot up at the sight of the mostly empty living room, occupied only by their remaining teammates.  “Huh.”

 

“Yeah, huh,” says Will wryly.  He picks up the red cup he pre-emptively filled with water and pushes it into Nursey’s hand.  “Here, drink up.”

 

Nursey makes a face and tries to push it away, slopping a little of it down his front and a lot of it down Will’s.  He giggles, and Will considers whether any of the team are sober enough to count as credible witnesses in a murder investigation.  Fortunately for Nursey, Tango still looks semi-sober. 

 

Grumbling, Will places the cup to his defensive partner’s lips and forces him to drink whatever is left of his water.  To his credit, Nursey drinks up without much of a fight and finishes the cup with a weak burp before handing it to Will, who aims for the black sack Ford has placed in the middle of the floor in an attempt to get them all to start the cleanup early.

 

She really doesn’t know them yet, does she?

 

Tonight’s kegster has been... different, to say the least.  More subdued, though Will thinks he probably should have expected that given Bitty’s nature, which is a little less... _exuberant_ than either Ransom or Holster’s.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing either, although it was a little disconcerting to look over at the beer pong table and not see Lardo there holding court and dominating all comers.  Will is intensely grateful that Bitty instigated a ‘no table dancing’ rule for the coming semester, because Nursey does enough damage when he’s got his feet on solid ground and mixing him, tub juice and an unstable base is never a good idea.  Whiskey still has the scar over his right eyebrow from when he played the hero last year.

 

Still, table dancing or no table dancing, Nursey has managed to get himself well and truly plastered.  Nursey Patrol has had to be reinstated, and Will is almost glad he’s the one tasked with wrangling him tonight.  At least this way he can be guaranteed not to find questionable bedfellows in his room when he gets upstairs.  He’s gotten pretty good at gauging when Nursey is about to puke, too, so that’s some sort of positive to be taken from the whole situation, right?

 

Maybe he’s had a cup too many himself.

 

“Hey, Ford!” he calls across the floor- she’s still Ford, too early in her managerial role to have a nickname bestowed upon her- and she turns away from Bitty, who crows and escapes to the kitchen with his phone held aloft in triumph.  He gestures to the octopus-boy clinging to his side.  “Little help here?”

 

“On it!” she replies, and weaves her way through the debris to take up a position on Nursey’s other side.  Together, the trio stagger out of the living room and up the stairs.  Nursey is fading fast, as he tends to do at kegsters- he’s the life and soul of the party, but when the alcohol catches up to him he’ll pass out just about anywhere.  Will tells Ford this as they walk, about how he once fell asleep in the kitchen and didn’t even notice when Rans and Holster buried him beneath a pile of empty solo cups, and about the time he found him snoring half-in-half-out of the window to the reading room.  Ford snorts with laughter and ruffles Nursey’s hair, to which he responds with a feeble moan.

 

“You’re a good friend to him,” she tells Will, full of quiet sincerity, and he pulls a face in spite of himself.  “You _are._ If you didn’t spend so much time plotting his demise, you two would be actual goals.”

 

She pokes her tongue out at Will when he groans in an undignified manner, then laughs again.  Her whole face seems to brighten when she laughs, and it strikes Will how very pretty she is.  He sort of understands why Tango tends to make that weird squawking noise when she appears unexpectedly in the locker room after practice.  Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, he shoulders open the door to the bedroom he shares with his unconscious teammate and leads the way inside.  They deposit Nursey on the bed somewhat unceremoniously, eliciting another of those pathetic little whines of his, and then hover over him uncertainly.

 

“I’ve got it from here,” Will says, panting a little from the exertion of it all.  “Thanks, Ford.”

 

She shrugs.  “Gotta look out for my cas- _team_ , my _team,_ ” she corrects herself, making them both chuckle ruefully.  She casts a knowing eye over the pair of them.  “Try not to kill him in his sleep, won’t you?”

 

“Yes ma’am,” says Will, offering a boy scout’s salute as she ruffles Nursey’s hair one last time before heading back downstairs, pulling the door behind her as she goes. 

 

Then it is just the two of them, and Will sets about fishing a pair of sweats out of the dresser, only to turn and find Nursey still slumbering in the same position he had dumped him in, splayed on his stomach with his mouth hanging open and his arm dangling over the side of the bottom bunk Will had installed in lieu of Lardo’s old work station.  Will sighs.

 

“C’mon, Nurse, time for bed,” he mumbles, crossing the room to nudge the other boy awake.  Nursey’s eyelids flicker a couple of times before he seems to realise where he is.

 

“Dex?” he slurs as he struggles to sit up, probably from a mixture of intoxication and exhaustion.  “’S’happenin?”

 

“Bedtime, Nurse,” says Will, not unkindly.  In all honesty, rooming with him hasn’t been nearly as intolerable as he’d expected so far, so he’s doing his best not to be an incorrigible asshat.  If Ransom and Holster could see them now, they’d probably cry.  Or offer them the attic dibs, because seriously bros, _Ollie and Wicks_?

 

“’M in bed,” Nursey points out, looking up at him with his brow furrowed.

 

“No, you’re _on_ bed,” Will argues.  He tosses the sweatpants to Nursey, because he has a feeling they might have been his to begin with, having fallen into his own gear bag in their haste to make checkout on a roadie towards the end of last season.  “Here, get changed.  You need to sleep off whatever crap Chowder put in the tub juice.”

 

“Ch’yeah,” says Nursey with a weak chuckle.  “Needta call Shits, tell him his crown is safe.”

 

“In the morning,” Will presses, because Nursey is drooping again.  “Bed.  Now.”

 

“Yes mom.”  Nursey holds the sweatpants up in front of him, brow puckered in a way which is absolutely not endearing.  “Uh, Dexy?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Little help here?” he asks, holding the sweats out to him expectantly and _oh._

 

“Um,” says Will eloquently.

 

It’s not that he’s uncomfortable with touching another dude’s body- he’s _not,_ his dad stuck that damn sticker on his laptop freshman year- so much as the fact that it’s _Nursey_.  Touchy-feely is not exactly in Will’s wheelhouse, and there’s something entirely too intimate about such close proximity which has always caused him to abandon Nursey in whatever unfairly attractive ensemble he’s put together when he’s been on Nursey Patrol in the past.  Nursey doesn’t seem to have minded either, so it shouldn’t be any different now just because they’re sharing a room.

 

Only it is.  Everything is different now, much as he wishes it wasn’t.  Everything is more intimate this way, more immediate, and Will’s still not sure whether he likes it or wants to light himself on fire.

 

“Deeeex,” Nursey croons, still holding up the sweatpants and all but pouting, which Will thinks is an unfair ploy on his part that Chowder never should have taught him.  “Please?  ‘M _tired,_ an’ I like sharing a room with you, an’ I think I’m drunk, an’ Rans says there’s a bylaw about tuckin’ your liney in when he’s too shwasted to do it himself, an’ I am, only don’t tell anyone, ‘kay?”

 

Will snorts.  It’s bullshit of course, except that for all he knows it’s not.  He wouldn’t put it past Ransom and Holster, and he knows Jack’s tucked Shitty in on more than one occasion, though he thinks that might have been so he didn’t expose himself to any more traumatised freshmen than because of a Haus rule.

 

“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth, and so follows the most awkward couple of minutes of his college life to date. 

 

It doesn’t help that Nursey keeps giggling, or that he _wriggles_ , or that he kicks Will in the chest trying to shuck off his skinny jeans and then spends two full minutes apologising sloppily while Will scowls and goes to fetch him a well-worn Sharks shirt (does anything in this room have a rightful owner) with his chest burning a little from the skin-to-skin contact.

 

“Here,” he says gruffly over a snuffling repetition of his own name from Nursey, who fumbles to catch the shirt and then pales before shaking his head frantically.  He drops the shirt like Chowder confronted with a puck off the ice.

 

“’S too cold,” he protests, even though it’s a clammy night and more than one member of the team has been spotted sprawled shirtless in the grass in the backyard.  “Need sleeves.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Will growls, but grabs him a longer-sleeved alternative anyway because he’s determined to keep his word to Ford and not commit a felony right here in their bedroom.  “Happy now?”

 

“Yes,” says Nursey, all uninhibited obliviousness and loose limbs.  He bobs his head until he starts to look queasy and sets about getting himself into the second-choice shirt while Will pads across to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

 

When he comes back Nursey is still navigating his quick-change routine, arms stretched above his head and t-shirt around his shoulders.

 

Will doesn’t mean to look.

 

He doesn’t.

 

He’s honestly just checking to see if it’s safe to turn out the light.

 

But he does look.

 

And then he wishes he hadn’t.

 

He wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what, so instead he shuts his eyes tight and waits a moment before turning off the light and scrambling up the ladder to his bed.

 

He lies there and thinks and doesn’t sleep, even after Nursey’s snuffling snores float up to fill the small space between them.

 

\---------------------------------

The next morning, Will fidgets.  He tries not to, but he does, and it doesn’t take long for someone to notice.  Subtlety has never been his strong suit after all.

 

“Dex, honey, you feelin’ alright?” asks Bitty over breakfast, his features pale and pinched but still awash with concern as he pushes a plate of pancakes towards him.  Will stiffens.  Next to him, Nursey is falling asleep into his glass of orange juice.  “Dex?”

 

“Yeah,” he says once he’s gathered himself a bit, and forces out a shaky laugh that sounds horrible even to his own ears.  “Yeah, I’m good.  Just tired is all.  Thanks Bits, this looks great.”

 

He makes himself eat, even though it all tastes like cardboard and he can’t get the image of Nursey’s arm out of his mind.  It flickers into view every time he blinks, looming eerily, and he’s not entirely sure how nobody has noticed him going insane at the breakfast table.

 

He’s overthinking it, he tells himself.

 

It’s easily explained.  A hockey injury, from a rogue skate catching him as someone pulled out of a mistimed check.  A by-product of Nursey’s clumsy nature, perhaps from an ill-advised attempt at cooking or some other exasperating misadventure.

 

But a skate or a dropped knife don’t catch the same couple of square inches over and over again, and Nursey hasn’t been seen in a tank top in the longest time and-

 

“Gotta go,” says Will hurriedly, scraping back his chair and abandoning his plate.  As he makes his escape he is vaguely aware of a scrum to claim his leftover pancakes, of Chowder calling after him worriedly and of a pair of eyes following his ragged path from the kitchen to the stairs.

 

There’s no reason to hide a trivial injury, but he thinks that’s what Nursey’s been doing and it makes him think about the last time he saw Nursey smile sober and then he wishes he hadn’t because he can’t really remember.

 

\---------------------------------

 

He’s lying on his side, facing the wall and tracing haphazardly along the spider web crack he’d found there his first night living in the Haus when he hears the door creak open, then shut.  He stills and squeezes his eyes shut, pleads with his breath to even out to something resembling a regular pattern.

 

Nursey coughs below him.

 

He bites the inside of his cheek.

 

“Dex,” says Nursey quietly, cautiously.  “I can tell you’re awake.”

 

He rolls over and smiles weakly.  Nursey peers up at him, his expression guarded.  He’s got the sleeves of his sleeping shirt pulled right down over his palms, Will notices, and his stomach twists.

 

“Hey,” he mumbles, glancing at a spot somewhere over his roommate’s head. 

 

“Hey,” says Nursey, and he inhales shakily.  “So.”

 

“So.”

 

“You saw?  Last night?”

 

Will nods, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

 

“I saw,” he says, hoarsely.  A tiny, pained noise escapes Nursey, forcing him to look at him properly.  Nursey is pale beneath his dark colouring, and there are shadows blooming beneath his eyes that Will thinks have been there longer than is healthy.  He tries to ask, then tries again.  “Nursey, wh-“

 

“Will you do something for me?” Nursey asks abruptly, and he just looks so _vulnerable_ that Will finds himself nodding before he even knows what he’s agreeing to.  The taller boy takes a seat at the desk Will erected by the window and looks back at him over his shoulder.  “Come here.”

 

And again, without question, Will does.  He stands behind Nursey, so close that he can see the quiver in his movements as he grabs a dark blue Sharpie and hands it to him before rolling up the sleeve of his right arm- his _undamaged_ arm, Will thinks, and instantly regrets it- to present him with an expanse of clear, unblemished skin.

 

“Draw me a butterfly,” Nursey says quietly.  Will balks.

 

“I- uh, I can’t draw,” he says, but Nursey shrugs.

 

“I’m not asking for a masterpiece,” the poet counters.  His eyes blaze with _need._   “Just draw me a butterfly, and I’ll try to keep it alive.”

 

And Will does.

 

He draws a butterfly, uneven and asymmetrical, and when Nursey closes his eyes and starts to explain The Butterfly Project in a tight, measured voice, he draws another.  And another and another and another, one for each time Nursey’s voice cracks with the effort of spilling his darkest secrets and one for each time he didn’t notice what was going on with him and one for each butterfly Nursey has tried and failed to keep alive and one for each fervent promise of his own to help him to succeed.  He draws until Nursey’s voice grows hoarse, and then draws one more for good measure.

 

None of them are perfect, or even close to it, but when he pulls away Nursey stares at his arm like the deformed little creatures belong in the Louvre. 

 

“Thank you,” he says, his voice little more than a whisper and his expression so earnest that Will can’t bring himself to look away.  He watches Nursey extend a single finger and stroke each butterfly reverently.

 

“I’m really, _really_ glad we’re roommates,” he says, his voice too loud after what’s just unfolded between them.  Nursey looks at him for a moment, long and hard, and while he doesn’t smile he seems a little lighter when he speaks again.

 

“Me too.”

 

\---------------------------------

 

A month and a half later, Will finds himself sitting in the window of a shop front in Boston with Lardo opposite him.  His former manager is sipping at a takeaway cup of green tea and observing him closely.

 

“You sure you want to do this?” she asks, like she’s been doing all morning.  Her hair has grown out a bit and she’s got a new piercing in her ear, but apart from that she’s the same Lardo she was at Samwell.  She can still fix him with that terrifying stare of hers, and he still gets the slightly perturbing feeling that she can read him from just the trembling of his hands around his own cup.  He swallows, thickly.

 

“Positive,” he says, and though his hands shake his voice does not.  Lardo smiles almost proudly.

 

“And you know if you do this there’s no going back?” she presses, again for the umpteenth time since meeting him off the train.  “Because this is a really big deal.”

 

He chokes out a laugh.  “Yeah, I know it’s a big deal,” he says, lowering his gaze to peel the cardboard safety layer away from the Styrofoam.  “So’s Nursey.”

 

“That he is,” Lardo agrees warmly.  She reaches across the little table between them to lay a hand on top of his.  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, that night when I gave you both my dibs, but it... it wasn’t my secret to share, not with you.  I’d already called his moms when I saw what he’d been doing, I told him to let someone I’d be leaving behind in, figured he’d tell you when he was ready.  If I’d known he’d relapse...”

 

“Don’t,” says Will, squeezing her hand.  They’ve had this conversation over and over since the day he first drew on Nursey’s arm, since the day it all came out and he discovered just how much of a facade Nursey had been putting up.  Lardo’s explained things with a little more clarity than Nursey had been capable of that morning, and with a certainty that makes Will wonder just how she came to know this coping mechanism so acutely.  “Lardo, don’t.”

 

“You see why I was so adamant about him getting into that Haus?” asks Lardo, her eyes sparkling.  “You get it, right?”

 

“I get it,” says Will, and he does.  Nursey _had_ needed those dibs, more than either of them had known at the time.  And Lardo- clever, fierce, loyal Lardo- she’d noticed, and she’d known he shouldn’t be on his own anymore, that he needed to be surrounded by their strange, messed up, pseudo-family so that someone would spot what was going on if he wouldn’t tell them himself.

 

Will wishes Nursey would have told him, he does, but mostly he’s just relieved that he knows at all.  It’s not easy, the knowing, but he’ll gladly take the hardship over being oblivious to Nursey’s hurt.  He’d take every hardship he could, if it would make things better for Nursey.

 

“You know,” says Lardo, with a flicker of that sardonic, knowing grin of hers.  “This is a lot to do for a teammate.”

 

Will flushes, but is saved the humiliation of making a pitiable argument in his defence by a voice calling his name.  He pokes his tongue out at Lardo, and _yes,_ there’s that shit-eating grin of hers, on full display if only for a split second.

 

“Still time to back out,” she says, but he shakes his head and follows the receptionist through the glass door and down the corridor with her delighted whoop echoing in his ears.

 

\---------------------------------

 

Later, quietly terrified, he shows Nursey.

 

He does it before dinner, after everyone else’s galloping footsteps have quietened but before Bitty starts hollering for them to hurry up because he can’t hold Chowder back much longer.  He figures if it goes badly, at least one of them can escape to the comfort of pie.

 

“I-uh, I did a thing,” he says, eloquent as ever, and in answer to Nursey’s questioning look he peels off his flannel and raises his left arm.  He winces a little, but it’s less to do with the discomfort and more with the sharp inhale he hears from the other boy.

 

The tattoo is on his inner bicep, positioned in such a way that he can keep it hidden unless he wants it seen.  It is wrapped up, slightly swollen and red, but its intricacies are obvious even in this early stage of healing.

 

A butterfly, wings unfurled in jubilation and formed from the same bold, strong loops present in the Celtic cross he wears around his neck.

 

“Dex,” Nursey breathes, his face open with awe, and he raises a hand as if to touch it.  Will nods shakily.  “Dex, _ohmygod_ , _Dex.”_

“Lardo drew it for me,” says Will.  His trembling stops under Nursey’s feather-light touch.  “She put a lot of work into it, and I may have cried and kicked the tattoo artist, so you’ve got to try damn hard to keep this one alive, OK?”

 

Nursey stares at the butterfly for a long time, then guides Will’s arm back to his side.  He glances at the handful of butterflies on his own forearm.  Most of them are faded, almost gone, but there are a couple of newer, brighter ones; some days the itch is stronger than others, and some nights he wakes Will up with wild eyes and a marker in his hand, but he’s only killed two since the day he told Will everything and that’s progress.

 

“I’ll try,” he says, his voice surprisingly strong, and he latches nimble fingers around Will’s wrist with a fiercely determined expression on his drawn features.  “I’ll try for you.”

 

“Not for me,” argues Will.  “Don’t do it for me.  Do it for you.”

 

Nursey nods, shaky but certain, and it feels like something has shifted between them.  Like the battle ahead has been brought into focus, but like their solidarity has too.  It’s stupid, but Will feels they’ve forged something here, something as indelible as the tattoo healing on his arm.

 

“I got Lardo to draw one for you, too,” he whispers, because anything louder might startle them both back to reality.  “For when you’re ready, whenever that is.”

 

“I- _Jesus_ ,” says Nursey, his eyes ablaze.  He stares at Will like he’s seeing the sun for the first time, and for once Will doesn’t want to look away.  “Thank you.  _Thank you_.  But I- Dex, it could be _years_.  I- it could never, I-I-“

 

“Whenever.  If ever,” Will says, a promise between just the two of them, in this room he hadn’t wanted to share, this room that now he wouldn’t give up for anything.  He quirks his lip up at one corner, a crooked half-smile.  “I’m in it for the long haul.”

 

“ _Dex_ ,” Nursey breathes, and on his lips it sounds like a prayer.  He doesn’t say anything else, just stares at him with that glowing gaze until they hear Bitty calling for them; then he almost-smiles and leads Will downstairs.  He doesn’t remove his fingers from his wrist, and Will doesn’t want him to.

 

This butterfly will not be the last; neither of them is naive enough to think it will be.

 

But it will be the beginning of the last, and for now that is good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've read this far, thank you. I realise this may not be an easy read for some of you; it was not an easy write either, nor is it perfect or anything close to it, but it is something I felt a need to write for personal reasons so thank you for sharing in this cathartic experience.
> 
> The Butterfly Project, for those unaware, is a coping mechanism designed to help fight the urge to self-harm. Like all things, it is not a universal fix and does not work for everyone, but it can be helpful for some. I haven't gone into the detail of it all here, but basically it involves drawing a butterfly on yourself with the name or thought of someone who cares for you and wants you to be safe. The idea is to keep the butterfly alive by resisting engaging in self-harm. You can draw your butterflies yourself, or someone who loves you may draw them, as Dex does here. You may also draw butterflies in support of a friend or loved one who is struggling, even if you yourself are not. 
> 
> If you would like to discuss the butterfly project more, or are feeling unsafe in general, I may not know you but I am more than happy to talk.
> 
>  
> 
> For Keva.


End file.
